Tim Smith

Ok then I guess that takes you out of the "what I like about CbB" then?

@telecode 101 I guess that analog digital debate goes back quite some time now. We have had some involved discussions on the old Cake forum about all of it. There are a few here who understand the nuts and bolts of all of it pretty well at the component level. Since I was an electronics tech I can grasp a lot of it. Probably the biggest difference is that digital makes a conversion while true analog never does. The conversion has such a fine resolution no human ear can hear the 1's and 0's. This is at 44.1 16 bit the old CD format. If we are recording at 96k and 24 or 32 bit the conversion is even more precise on decent equipment. It really is leaps and bounds better than the headroom and noise floor we get using analog. Analog sees voltage controlled circuits and amplifies the input using transformers coupled to amplifier circuits. At one time it was transistors which are now usually embedded into ICs. The business end of the amp or last stage is where we can get a lot of noise from an amp. If there is already noise in the 1st stages of the amp the last stage only amplifies it more. Class A is the best, many amps now are class B, class A/B or less. These amps have lot's of noise in the circuitry. All amps have some noise though. There are mainly IC driven amps now. No tubes. While most amps now are not truly digital in most cases, they are solid state. Manufacturers try to avoid huge heavy transformers and capacitors because they cost more to make. They use the less expensive solid state ICs instead. As to the accuracy of the music itself in analog .vs digital. Old tube analog had a built in compensation that acted almost like a light compression depending on the amp. Digital does not have this and why I think some people associate analog with a softer sound. With the right plugins and compression though we can get around that in DAWs. The old tubes would "roll off" some of the harshness. We can add a plug in now that does the same thing. At some point, no matter what we do we are going into the digital realm and the way the final file is played and mixed has a lot to do with how it's going to sound. We can't ever really go back to 100% analog from start to finish. On a good mix mastered well, I don't think most people ask whether it's solid state or tubes. JMOP. @Shane_B. I think the economies are changing everywhere. Half of the people over me are working from home today. COVID is creating a bunch of laziness in my opinion.

You might be able to get rid of them if you try to sell them online. About the only tape I can see making sense is the tape used at the mastering end. Using a real Studer to master would be a luxury. Several well known bands rent those to master. There's an A80 on Reverb for just a little more than 12k. UAD plugins probably gets close enough that we don't need a real Studer.

This is what I mostly use ENGINE for. I am not sure about the old YT stuff running on ENGINE. It "should" but if I were a betting man I wouldn't bet on it. Those sounds go back a long long time.

Yeah most of those systems are not the best quality nowadays. I have found headphones can make a difference if the speakers aren't that great. Someone gifted me a low end record player which I was glad to get because my old turntable needs work. It's ok. Not the best.

I'll check Pigments out. I guess that's mainly why I haven't bought Serum, because EDM is not my interest. I do like lush interesting soundscapes and leads that cut. Have you tried UVI Falcon? I love Vaccum, Hybrid and Most of the Air products. I guess they are preset romplers but darned good ones for the price. -Tim

?

I knew vinyl was a thing. How big of a thing I'm not sure. I have one plugin that removes record crackles and another plugin that adds them back in.

The repair person I am referring to claims he put over 1500 miles on his truck every month. Apparently he worked in a lot of government facilities. If the chips had fallen in another direction I might have ended up in that line of work. ARCNET is still in use believe it or not. Works great for these applications with each unit having a board with all the points in it. The buildings have hundreds of units. Every board has an address and it's own program that ties into the main interface. Only recently have they started to move to IT based control for these systems. I don't think this is as good. Now you need a router and the addresses have to be changed externally to make IT happy. If the IT system goes, so does the control. The boards can operate autonomous. The main issue right now is the chip shortage. Other than that ARCNET is simple, stable and it works for this very well. With ARCNET I can still link up remotely to the server and see everything. Everything is a branch and we have hundreds of branches. I hope you can find something you like. If not, it wasn't mean't to be. You seem to be keeping busy enough. Your wife works. Looks like you're ok. I've been using my standing desk here because sitting all day isn't healthy. I'm gaining weight now. I guess there probably isn't much out there in KC?

I had been running the last version of ENGINE with a few dedicated libraries. It always threw up a .yti error but ran anyways. Hopefully this will correct the issue. ENGINE doesn't have a lot of frills but it gets the job done.

I think my post came across wrong. I was saying that there's no excuse for anyone not to have CbB if they want it. Studio One surely acquired the most Cakewalk customers when everyone was thinking Cakewalk was going the way of the do do bird. When that group crossed over they didn't want to come back and take another chance with Cakewalk. Studio one stuck with them to this day, while some still come back to the CbB forum(like you). In addition to Cakewalk, Studio One probably captures one of the very best balances for a musician who wants to record a live instrument or band and also get their hands into midi. Add the hardware factor in there and we have a winner. I don't blame anyone for making that jump. At the time no one knew Cakewalk would be revived by Bandlab. To get any of those guys to come back is a tall order. Still, many here are proof that multiple DAWS can be a part of certain workflows. If I had a bunch of people who were all using a different DAWs and we were working remotely, CbB would be an obvious choice because anyone who uses a PC can get it for free and could send their files to be opened on the other end. Any remote collaboration can be confusing. If you dedicate one mixing engineer and ONE copy of the mix with others sending tracks, they still need to hear a reasonable mix at their end to track. Mp3 adds a tag that lengthens the track, so wav is best...or midi to be finished somewhere else. There's the Bandlab app which can share across the distance. I haven't used it much. Passing a larger more complex CbB mix around to various people to add their tracks is another option.If everyone has the same copy and the same plugs, I guess that makes sense. Could get very confusing very quickly though. Most of my collabs have been small. The emails were what got complicated, trying to understand each other because usually there is always critique and no two people always see it the same. There should be an agreement that ONE person makes those final calls IMO.

I second Iris 2. So far the only potential use I've had for it is as sfx. It has a lot of potential, I just haven't seen the need for any of it. Surge seems to be highly praised by mostly sound designers who like to dabble in that stuff. That ain't me, so I didn't particularly gel with it as a useful tool. On Kontakt- If a person were to only choose two programs to make all sorts of music with it would have to be Komplete and Sampletank. I was also surprised to dig out some shiny very usable toys in Kontakt. Same with ST4. I have heard Serum is a pretty nice synth. I just haven't decided if I really want to spend that much on it. I'm more into acoustic compos. -Tim

You would get along well with a friend of mine 40 years working on copiers. At least they haven't all gone away. We had an electrical parts supplier right down the street and we kept some stock. They had almost everything there but occasionally we had to order it. When I worked in the A/V and stereo shop it was a cool job because you could listen to music all day on nice stereos and get paid for it and they brought some really high end gear into that shop. I then went to two way radio from there because it payed better with govt. contracts and all. Police and fire all need it. Then I made a really big jump to climate controls and HVAC. That trade was 80% electrical. Now it's probably more like 90% electrical. I paid my dues and now I work with Automated Logic (owned by Carrier) as a user of their software to manage large installations remotely.. I mean LARGE installations. I manage probably one of the largest in my area with thousands of points. It was ARCNET but is migrating their new hardware to IT based control. It's still around it has just changed the approach. Not that I know much about that *ahem*

Yes I remember a few doom and gloom comments others had about CbB a year ago on another forum. None of it has come to pass. Instead what we have are people who tried it and rather like using it instead of brand X. I don't think this DAW has really gathered a full head of steam yet. I think within a few more years it will be bigger yet. The fixes, yes- As good or better than any paid DAW. ? The CbB team are constantly listening to users and refining the software. I'm glad this works well for those who use it. I think templates are the way to go if you work in a similar way all time. I work every which way lol. Maybe they will change it. The main thing lately haunting me in CbB is I have too many odd plugins, some attached to video programs and other DAWS that CbB is scanning and it parks on them as a problem. I need to thin my scan folders back down because honestly I don't use half of those plugins. That's a problem I made for myself. The solution you found is great. Lots of great synths out there that have the option built in though. If you make a template it should save those synth settings. Maybe someone else can help you here on that since it isn't my normal cuppa to make arpeggios. I suspect there may be more under the hood. On rare occasions when I do that I stack a few synths up and lock all of their arpeggiators. That actually puts me on overload because there are so many choices. Me too. Same here Steve. We are datin' ourselves. The Cakewalk old timers ? You devs hear that? Take a large kudo you all deserve. Thanks Steve, Lots of good points. One thing that has come back to bite me multiple times are not saving my projects enough. I have lost lots of material that way. I think auto save defaults at something like every 15 minutes if I'm not mistaken. I prefer every 5 minutes because you just never know with any DAW if it's going to cough that one time and I loose all of my hard work. CTRL+S should be a habit with me. True that. As a keyboardist mainly the keys take up most of my desk real estate. In my next studio I hope to have a DAW controller handy. For me though those keystrokes are almost as efficient. I agree the controller matching section could use improvement. The old videos for connecting with ACT always loose me. Let's just say some people are not cut out to make instructional videos. There have probably been better ones made since. I had hoped maybe there is a future marriage between Bandlab hardware and CbB. No way to know but it seems likely to me as a way for them to sell hardware. And I think this has been probably the second largest hurdle aside from people continually throwing up the old "it always crashes" that came about from the days of Win 8 and vista. Someone on every board is going to pop out of thr woodwork and say, " I tried Cakewalk back in 2011 and it did nothing but crash on me. They might not actually admit that it has been that long. Now all of these people bought 3 thousand dollar macs with 8gb of ram in them and under powered chips. The free thing is something I'm prepared to get over as someone who once pain $$ for this DAW. Nothing is really free but we aren't paying for it any longer. Some people would insist they need to pay for it to be good. Maybe we can start a little side business to make them feel better? Not much excuse there. You have CbB? No? Why not? Are you a weiner head monkey?

At least we know you wear pants.

Not sure if this is applicable or not, If all the mechanism needs is a belt I believe there are small belts in various sizes you can still get that haven't been on a shelf for 30 years. Where you would find them though is anybody's guess. The bad thing about a tape machine that has sat in the engaged position is you now have a small divet in the rubber wheel. When it goes around you get a kathump very time it comes around. You were very fortunate to get one that still works. For anything that has sat in an attic, forget it. That rubber is long gone. I have had more machines apart on a bench than I care to remember. Probably hundreds of cassette mechanisms.I had a magnifier with a built in light to see all of those small parts. I was in A/V for awhile and that was everything from those gross film machines coming from the porn shops to projectors coming from schools. Video projectors were just catching on then. Almost no mechanical anything in electronics now, and no one who knows how to fix any of it. At one time we could cross reference any electronic component in a unit from a book and have it in our shop in a day or two. Not as much any more. I enjoyed the tinkering part of it. My eyes aren't what they used to be now.

Well said. The DAW I mentioned in that example was Cubase 11 Pro.It might have the feature I mentioned however it surely is not intuitive to find it if it exists. To me it's a flaw because it should be as easy as it is in CbB a right click on the track>select replace synth>done. There are definitely some bennys for anyone who was a paying customer. At one point I think we got Addictive Drums in the package. I recently considered updating a Cakewalk Platinum addition that had an AAS product in it. It would seem I can't upgrade it in the usual way because it was attached to Cakewalk. Since my requirements in drums are not that much, I can make almost anything work for the beats I need. Give me almost any drum sample and I can probably make it pop where it needs to pop. I mean, for something like a kick I could wack a recliner in my living room and get a decent thump to work with. Drum replacer probably helps for a lot of people....so yes, I agree the kits that are in CbB are as good as any and are not over processed. You are probably aware we are in the minority now with millions downloading more recent versions of CbB ?If I didn't have any of that there are plenty of free plug in instruments that would likely fit the bill very well. Since you are comparing a lot to Studio One I guess there are pros and cons to each. I have Studio One 5 Pro and I honestly thought I would use it more than I have. There are some excellent plugins with that DAW. The plugins in CbB are ok too. I often will not use a built in EQ with because the filters are not that great on many of them, this is especially true for me on a master. This is just a preference of mine. If I'm simply high passing the low end I guess almost anything will do that. The EQ in SO5 is pretty good, at least as good as the one in Cubase in my opinion. A person could use the Pro Channel in CbB to get the individual tracks shaped up pretty good. There are a lot of things you can do with simple plugins such as sending a copy of a boosted freq in a track to a compressor with a side chain. All of this can be done well in CbB which also has a built in Multi band limiter. It's getting a bit dated but works as good as any. I don't see the plugins in Cakewalk as being any better or worse than say the plugins in Ableton. The ability to open up the EQ to a larger GUI helps as does the presets which can help to get a beginner close to the pocket. I just put three tracks totaling 10 minutes into SO5 for a live stream that needed 10 minutes of music. I used the mastering section of the program. This actually worked against me because I needed all tracks as one track not individual tracks. That part of SO makes individual tracks. So I could have done it in CbB. Interesting.

Duplicate

Here is one I made awhile back. I was attempting to replicate a jazz hall. I learned a lot of things in this mix. It starts off rather abruptly. The shouts reminded me of some old 50's movies I've some across so I added them which makes the whole thing seem more choreographed. This mix itself could use some work to put the pianos better in the space. I added parts of piano on both sides of the stereo image and so it has a bit of an odd delivery but seemed to work at the time. -Tim

I enjoyed getting into this one. I was trying to figure out what 'it' was lol. Nice job on this. - Tim

Great job all around by all. I wasn't sure, is this a re write of an existing tune or a remix of an original? In any case. It sounds wonderful!

Nice job! I would love to learn to put video like this up some time. Since you are working with that distortion effect, I am wondering if maybe using the same arpeggio using a different synth would help? I think it's the 'grit' in that patch that sticks out. I know changes in detail are not something we usually want to deal with once a mix is already uploaded, at least I don't like coming back to something I thought was finished or at least close to finished. I can't comment on the lower ranges because I was only able to hear this on my buds which are lacking. Nice work! -Tim

Thank you @garybrun and @jack c. for listening and comments.

This mix is a perfect balance of elements. Whatever you did with those pianos works. Would make a good backdrop mix simply because it does not have any harshness whatsoever. You seemed to have gone for the intimate mix which the pianos work well for. The video is great. I could see some kind of words on the screen. Nice work!

I would guess used Portasudios are going for a good price right now, that is, until and unless cassette tapes become a 'thing' again. I worked with the old Wollensak and Recordex duplicators, also renewed the rubber drives in various cassette decks back in the day. For that reason I would be leary of an old Portastudio unless you can still get fresh rebuild kits for them. After awhile anything rubber in a transport mechanism becomes like chewing gum. I have an old Sony cassette player in storage. The last time I pulled it and played a tape in it , the thing actually worked. It must have a direct drive mechanism in it. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why it would still work being 30 plus years old.